Using “yori” and “no hou ga” to make Comparison in Japanese

Oh yes! Another useful grammar word for your daily dosage of Japanese learning. You will learn how to make comparison in Japanese. Very useful and commonly use. “Yori” より is the equivalent to the English word “than”. And “no hou ga” のほうが is equivalent to the English phrase “is much more”. Let’s get to the details!

So how do you say “This apple is bigger than this apple” ?

この　りんご　は　この　りんご　より おおきい です

Words to learn

この - this (use for describing something near you, a noun must follow after it, e.g “this apple” or “this orange”)

りんご - apple

おおきい、大きい - big

Explanation

In English, we have “big”, “bigger” and “biggest”. So how to phrase that out in Japanese? In Japanese, it would be totally different from English. It will be:

おおきい - Big

もっと　おおきい - bigger (もっと means more)

いちばん　おおきい - biggest (いちばん has various meanings like “most”, “best” or “number 1″)

But when you want to make a comparison in Japanese, please don’t think of the “big”, “bigger” and “biggest” sizing factor in English. Its not gonna work in Japanese. You need to use the yori より to do the comparison.

So in English, which is pre-position, we would say, “bigger than” but Japanese is post-position, so the phrase would become “than bigger” and change it to Japanese, you get より おおきい. Now, keep in mind that より will come first than follow by the adjective that you want to use. So all adjectives will go like this:

より　おおきい - bigger than

より　ちいさい - smaller than

より　きれい - prettier than

より　べんり - more convenient than

Get it?  Now how do we form a sentence with it? We shall make a comparison of saying “This apple is smaller than the pear“. Step by step explanation below

1. First identify the first object that you want to compare and mark it as your topic. Apple is the topic. So start off by saying この　りんご　は. Remember that the は particle is the topic marker.

2. Next, find the second object that you want to compare, that would be the pear,　なし. So add the なし after the この　りんご　は. So you get:

この　りんご　は　なし

3. Finally, add より　ちいさい behind again. And you got your sentence ready

この　りんご　は　なし　より ちいさい です.

4. You might want to add the です to sound polite 

The whole picture for you

“This apple is smaller than the pear”

English words In Japanese structure would become:

“This apple pear than smaller is”

この　りんご　は　なし　より ちいさい です

More ways to make comparison using “no hou”　の　ほう が

この　なし　より りんご　の　ほう が ちいさい です

Direct translation would be: “More than this pear, the apple is much smaller” <-

Tip: You might want to remember the direct translation mentioned above in English first in your head and then getting the feel of it, so that you can naturally think in Japanese. 

の　ほう　が acts in a simlar structure to より. Only thing to take note is that it works the opposite way

の　ほう　が　おおきい - much bigger

の　ほう　が　ちいさい - much smaller

の　ほう　が　きれい - much prettier

の　ほう　が　べんり - much more convenient